Charles L. Coleman III is a litigation partner resident in the San Francisco office of Holland & Knight. For more than 25 years, his practice has focused on complex commercial disputes, business transactions and regulatory litigation. Mr. Coleman has handled dozens of high profile cases for leading domestic and international corporations in a number of different industries, including aviation, defense, telecommunications, transportation, logistics, tourism, software, wine, insurance, and real estate.
Mr. Coleman has represented major companies based in the U.S., England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Japan and China in a wide variety of litigation. He also regularly provides pro-active advice to clients to help them minimize the business and insolvency risks inherent in commercial operations within the United States in general, and within California in particular.
In addition to handling contractual disputes, Mr. Coleman has successfully defended numerous product liability actions. He has extensive experience in defending against claims of fraud, business torts, unfair trade practices, and unfair competition under sections 17200, et seq. of California's Business and Professions Code. In conjunction with specialized patent, copyright and trademark attorneys, Mr. Coleman has handled California cases involving complex intellectual property issues. In all of his cases, Mr. Coleman places early emphasis on analyzing damage claims and, where appropriate, working with forensic accounting experts to defeat inflated damage claims presented by opposing parties.
To safeguard the interests of clients who have been sued in multiple jurisdictions, Mr. Coleman has assembled regional and national teams of lawyers and has directed successful strategies for the coordinated defense of those actions. He has worked effectively to coordinate the efforts of industry-wide joint defense groups in order to ensure a coherent and cost-effective defense for clients and their insurers.
Matters handled by Mr. Coleman include:
- Representing lead U.K. insurers in "film finance" litigation involving over US$100 million in production and finance charges for independently-produced films
- Representing a publicly-traded company in litigation brought, in over 25 separate federal and state lawsuits, by disgruntled licensees of its software
- The defense of a major European air carrier in multi-district litigation proceedings involving alleged "deep vein thrombosis" claims under the Warsaw Convention
- Representing a publicly-traded company in pursuing claims against a general partner in a real estate venture for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with section 42 housing tax credits and an unauthorized 1031 exchange
- The defense of novel tort and products claims brought against a European firearms manufacturer by various political figures and other plaintiffs in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, the District of Columbia, Louisiana and several jurisdictions in California
- The defense of substantial product liability and UCC claims brought against the manufacturer of telephone switching equipment that allegedly failed, causing cellular networks to go down in several cities in the Pacific Northwest
- The defense of a complex, multi-billion dollar wrongful death claim brought by the heirs of a leading Brazilian industrialist who perished in a helicopter accident
Mr. Coleman has published scholarly articles in the areas of products liability, transportation, federal preemption and other topics and has spoken to a number of professional bodies.
From 1975 through 1977, Mr. Coleman served on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps.